Around the world, globalization has been theme from the past century and is even more important in the 21st century. Being able to effectively communicate with people in different countries and cultures is desirable. The English language is fast becoming a common language and the need to learn communicative English is growing in non-English speaking countries. In addition, the importance of cultural education is increasing to understand the background of communication and this is also required in the English speaking world to deal with the non English speaking world. To respond to this globalization trend, for example in Japan, there have been numerous English schools and English learning materials available in the market for a long time. Global education and international understanding are now school subjects. In Australia, there has been a drive since 1994 when the government emphasized LOTE (Language Other Than English) learning and as a result many primary schools started LOTE education from pre-school age. There have been many learning materials, kits and CD-ROMs available in classrooms, in educational institutions, and in homes in both countries to aid the process of teaching and learning another language.
However in Japan, Australia and elsewhere, one common problem is the difficulty of people understanding the value of learning foreign languages. Giving purpose to learn another language is the ideal solution to this problem many people would agree upon, but finding the actual purpose was not easy. Therefore many solutions available in the market today are aimed at sustaining the interest of students and motivating them to keep learning, but many have failed as they could not provide opportunities to use the acquired language in a meaningful and purposeful way. In Japan, for example, many interactive CD ROMs and software provide an element of entertainment, but because the response is not natural and is not the same as real human interaction, it fails to maintain continued interest among young learners of English. Children like children as partners but in Japan it is difficult to find native English speaking children as partners. Adult native teachers are not effective enough as partners as they cannot talk to children about cartoons or sport in the same manner as same aged peers could. Children cannot sustain interest in learning if the learning is not in line with their personal interests and do not have a chance to practice the language on foreigners.
When people living in different countries with different languages want to exchange messages and become friends, they had to construct sentences in a second language and type them from keyboards. This restricted users who lacked those skills to create overseas friends and exchange regularly. With conventional email systems, users can instantly send/receive messages. Conventional translation software can translate certain words, but lacks accuracy which become an obstacle to email exchange. Also, using translation devices does not let the user have direct experience of constructing messages in another language and understand the structural differences between these languages. Furthermore, there were no mechanism to instantly find words and phrases that are immediately relevant to the users constructing the messages.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a multi language exchange system which provides easy communication in a foreign language without specialized language translation skills.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a multi language exchange system which translates text accurately.